Developing an Online Community for Women in Computer and Information Sciences: A Design Rationale Analysis

We describe the evolutionary development of an online community system designed to support a devel-opmental learning community of women - wConnect. The goal of this community is to engage, connect and support women at different developmental levels with respect to education and career goals in the computer and information sciences. We chronicle the system's development through design rationale motivated our decisions about how to support the online community activities. We present initial design goals, summarize the path we have followed thus far, and present a de-sign rationale account of the decisions influencing this path. We close with a brief summary of wConnect and our future plans for its online community system.